He carried so much.  More than “our sins and griefs to bear,”¹ He carried the weight, the pain, the inner turmoil, and mental anguish the results of all the by-products of those sins and griefs, upon a heavy-laden heart and mind.  Tears welled inside to the bursting, refusing to fall from the eyes that were singularly focused upon a greater joy.

It was the psalmist who wrote, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” Psalm 30:5, recognizing the temporary hold tears and sorrow have, especially when one’s heart is fixated upon a greater joy to be found in the morning.

For Christ, the illness of sin had made its mark on His body and throughout His person.  Yet, in the heaviness of the load He carried, and the pain His holy vessel endured, we are told, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” Hebrews 12:2.

Although the joy was there for what it would accomplish, let us not approach the pain He endured physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in a lackadaisical fashion.  Let us not brush aside what strength of heart and mind this endurance called for.  Let’s not subtract what the man, the person of Jesus felt and suffered at the hands of all these afflictions. 

So heavy it was, and so hard it was, we couldn’t do it for ourselves: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God” 2 Corinthians 3:5.

The tarnished state of man could never find in himself the satisfaction this heaviness of sin required, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23.  But in Christ, “ God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” Romans 3:25. 

Sin was paid in full.  Joy came at the thought and complete process and plan of the redeemed being ransomed from the clutches of darkness.  But let us not be unmindful or take lightly the night afflictions He suffered through before the day dawned.  In it, there was real pain and real sacrifice beyond the scope of what we can imagine.  All for the joy that we might experience a glory unimaginable, where “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” 1 Corinthians 2:9.

The weight of what Jesus endured could not dim the glory of the greater joy in the morning. Aren’t we glad about it!

He suffered, 
To save,
His greater joy 
Came to our aid,
And satisfied the debt, 
We could not pay.

His joy is complete,
In the sky
We shall meet,
The blessed Savior
Our sins impaled
Hands and feet.

Absent are tears
Or turning away,
Forever with Him
We shall surely stay.
Accepting His sacrifice
Paved the way.

The affliction of sin
Forever is gone,
A holy transformation
Undergone.
Awakening now
A new, joyous dawn. ©Word for Life Says, 2024

¹ ©“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” by Joseph M. Scriven, Charles C. Converse

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